The Backpack Killings

8/13/2024

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In November, 1993 evidence of ritual murder was discovered when seven victims were found shrouded in camouflaged, coffinlike canopies in an area known as Executioner's Drop.

Removal of the body of a female British backpacker after it was discovered in the Belanglo State forest c.1992 (Source-Sydney Morning Herald)

The New South Wales government offered a 250,000£ reward for what was considered the country's most wanted man believed to have killed at least seven people.

All the bodies were face down with hands behind their backs, and placed parallel to fallen trees or logs. They were covered with sticks and stones. Near each victim was a small campfire surrounded by a circle of rocks, indicating the killer may have remained next to the bodies for some time. They were all taken while traveling along the Hume Highway corridor.

Police and criminologists believed there were ritualistic overtones, and patterns the killer was following. At this point authorities weren't sure if it was one person or more.

Each site appeared to have been deliberately chosen, since they were similar in topography and followed the perimeter of the Belanglo Forest. It was determined this was a person who felt confident in the rugged bush of the forest, which lay about 60 miles from Sydney.

Caroline Clark (top), Joanne Walter (bottom) c.1993 (Source - Daily Express)

On September 19, 1992 the remains of Caroline Clark and Joanne Walters were found buried in a very shallow grave covered with sticks and leaves, at a point known as Executioner's Drop. They were visiting from Britain and backpacking on foot. They were last seen during Easter, five months before hitching a ride to Adelaide. Both of them were raped. Walters was gagged and stabbed to death, and Clarke was shot 12 times in the head. Six Longbeach cigarette butts were found at the scene, which the authorities hoped would lead to the perpetrator.

The forensic psychiatrist Dr. Rod Milton who visited the scene the day after the bodies were found, "believed that the cold distance displayed in this murder indicated there were two people involved. Certainly two personalities."

Within a month five more bodies were discovered. There was James Gibson and Deborah Everlist, last seen in 1989 near the forest. They disappeared somewhere between Liverpool and Goulburn, while thumbing a ride to a conservation festival. In February, 1990 Gibson's pack and camera were found on side of a rural highway, as if thrown from a passing vehicle.

Simon Schmidle a hitchhiker disappeared in January, 1991. Her skull was found under a pile of brush in a clearing in the forest. She had been hitching a ride to Melbourne on the same road as Gibson and Everlist. Her camping equipment and glasses were later found near a small town in Victoria named Wangatta. She had been bound, gagged and repeatedly stabbed.

A pair of jeans found near Schmidle's body were determined not to be hers, and the authorities confirmed what they feared. German national Anja Habschied, and her boyfriend Gabor Neugebauers were found nearby. They went missing after December, 1991, while hitchhiking from King's Cross to Darwin. Neugebauer was strangled and shot six times in the head. Habschied was nude below the waist, and her head was missing from the scene. It's believed she was unconscious when she was beheaded. Her head has never been found. Gabor was a fit young man who would be difficult to overpower, leading some to theorize there might have been an accomplice who participated in this murder.

Simone Schmidl

The only common denominator the victims shared was they had disappeared while on foot and they were disposed of in the same way, however the causes of death differed: Clark was stabbed in the chest and shot in the head several times; Gibson was stabbed several times; Everist was stabbed and slashed in the face: Schmidl was stabbed; Habschied was decapitated, and Neugebauer the only male was shot in the head five times with the same weapon used on Walters.

The victims who were stabbed had a unique wound to the upper back that severed their spinal cord, and left them immobile. It was an act of great savagery and rage.

Many of the victims had their pants buttoned but not zipped, and there was evidence of bondage and strangulation.

The authorities published photos of the victims and calls came in from locals, who had seen them hiking or trying to get a ride to their destination.

James Gibson and Deborah Everist

It wasn't until 1993 that authorities were led to a suspect named Ivan Robert Milat. It came about when Paul Onions called from Britain to say this was the person who attacked him near the Belanglo Forest in 1990. He had been hitchhiking when he was picked up by a man driving a silver Nissan four-wheel-drive truck. He called himself Bill. A half mile north of the Belanglo State Forest, the driver pulled a gun and said "this is a robbery!"

A struggled ensued and Onion managed to break free, and run through the bush while Bill shot at him. A passing motorist gave him a ride to a nearby police station, where he gave a report of the incident, including a sketch of the perpetrator who had a distinctive handlebar mustache.

Milat and his brother Richard were already suspects in the crime, even though later it was determined Richard was working on the days of the abductions.

They had good reason to suspect Ivan Milat due to his criminal history. On Good Friday in April 1971, he abducted two female hitchhikers. He raped one, but they convinced him to stop for a soda at a petrol station. Men inside the café helped the girls escape, but Milat sped out of the station before he could be stopped. The girls reported the incident to police, describing where he used a knife during the attack, and used the name of "Bill", which was his brother's name. This it seemed was his alter ego since he bought his car in that name, and worked under that name at times. Milat was arrested, and was facing rape and armed robbery charges, so he faked his death by leaving his shoes at the Gap, a scenic ocean cliff known as a suicide spot. About 50 suicides are reported every year, so it's little wonder police believed the ruse. Milat in reality had fled to New Zealand.

He was rearrested in 1974 when he returned to Australia, when his mother was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack. His brother Boris was the one who tipped off police when he came to visit at Prince Alfred Hospital. Due to police blunders he managed to avoid the conviction of all charges.

Gabor Neugebauer and Anja Habschied

Milat was arrested at a property in Eagle Vale, a Sydney suburb where he lived with his sister. He had moved there after his divorce in 1989. It appeared Milat led a double life; to his family he was a hard worker who didn't smoke or drink, however his wife Karen Duck saw another side. She was 16 and going out with his cousin, when Ivan raped her and somehow took possession of her, despite her being pregnant with his cousin's baby.

She led a horrible existence for the next ten years. "She couldn't leave the house without permission and had to show him receipts for the groceries. A leaf littering the front yard was cause for trouble." She waited till he was away on a job to leave him. In retaliation he burned down her parents' garage.

A search of the property found firearms linked to the murder, a silencer and camping gear that belonged to the victims. A .22 Ruger rifle's cartridges matched those found near Clark's body.

A later search of his mother's house produced a sword he used to behead Ania Hanschied. Detectives believed Milat would used his victim's skulls as target practice after they were dead, which accounted for the multiple head shots.

Milat owned property near Belanglo and had sold a Nissan Patrol 4-wheel drive shortly after Clarke and Walters were found.

Ivan Robert Marko Milat (1944-2019)

For some reason it seems that Milat insisted on poaching the women in his family. In 1971, his sister-in-law Marilyn ended their 11-year-affair. She had given birth to his daughter Lynise in 1965, despite being married to his brother Boris.

After the breakup he picked up and raped a hitchhiker, and Marilyn wondered if this attack was in response to the break-up. However this was the same year, Milat's sister Margaret, age 16 was killed in a vehicular head on collision in which their brother Walter was the driver. Ivan was one of the first to see her at the accident scene, and was scarred by her death.

Milat was also involved with Maureen Milat who was married to his younger brother Wally, who went looking for him with a gun. Ivan made himself scarce until the feud blew over, and then it was like it never happened.

After his marriage ended he resumed his relationship with Marilyn, who by now had divorced his brother Boris. He refused to become serious, so she broke it off after a year. This is when he started to abduct hitchhikers at Liverpool. The first to fall were Deborah Everist and James Gibson in 1989.

His next attempt was the failed abduction of Paul Onions, and probably fearing that police had a report about the attack, he would go an entire year before killing Simone Schmidl.

Milat was charged with assaulting Onion and the seven murders. Milat initially said his he was being set up by his own family, and tried to implicate two brothers, Richard and Walter.

Milat next to a sketch made of him by the police

This feeble explanation did not save him from being found guilty on all counts on July 27, 1995, and receiving seven life prison terms to run consecutively without the possibility of parole.

On his first day in Maitland Gaol he was beaten by another inmate, however the next year he attempted an escape with former attorney and drug dealer George Savvas. The next day Savvas was found hanging in his cell, and Milat was transferred to a super prison in New South Wales.

According to prison officials, the pair planned to overpower guards, scale the wall and had accomplices waiting outside who would provide cars and guns. Savvas had escaped once, and was serving a 30-year sentence for importing a large quantity of heroin in 1994.

In May 1997, prison guards found a well planned escape by Milat and three other inmates.

Throughout the years Milat filed appeals, which were not successful. His attorney at the time John Marsden claimed in 2005, that Milat was helped by a woman during the murder spree.

In January 2009, he cut off his little finger with a plastic knife, hoping to send it to the high court. The doctors were unable to reattach it. He attempted suicide twice, once by swallowing a razor blade and staples.

In June 2001 he was questioned at in inquest into the death of three women in 1978 and 1979. They were Robyn Hickie, 17, Amanda Robinson, 14, and Leanne Goodall, 20, which all disappeared in similar circumstances as his later victims. He denied knowledge of even knowing the women. He was also suspected in the disappearance of three other women, some of which were tourists from Europe and Japan.

During the time these six Newcastle women were murdered, Milat worked on a road crew in the area.

The arrest of Ivan Milat

Authorities have always been convinced that Milat committed more murders than the seven that sent him to prison. This is based on the observation that serial killers start to claim victims before they reach their 40s, which is when Milat committed the backpack murders.

Starting in 1993 a task force started to look at the disappearance of 58 young people, especially in the areas through which he traveled in the mid-1970s as a truck driver. However due to lack of evidence nothing was brought against him.

There were three cases they honed in on. Karen Rowland, 20 years old and pregnant disappeared on February 26, 1971. Her abandoned car was found in the outskirts of Canberra. Milat, 26 worked at the Department of Main Roads, and frequently drove between Canberra and Liverpool. Three months later Keren's remains were found off a footpath near the National Air Disaster Memorial. This was about 10 miles from where her car was found. Her clothing was pulled down indicating sexual assault. Near the body was a beer bottle. Due to decomposition, her cause of death could not be established, but her hyoid bones was fractured indicating she was probably strangled.

Shirley Milat Soire during her brother's court proceeding c.1995-95

On November 13, 1987 Peter Letcher, 18, left a suburb of Sydney to hitchhike a ride back to his home in Bathurst. He never arrived and his bones were found close to Jenolan Caves, about two months after he disappeared. His body was face down in a small ditch similar to the ones found in Belanglo Forest. He was wearing jeans, socks and shoes, next to his body were his shirt and jumper filled with bullet holes. Nearby was an empty whisky bottle He was handcuffed and shot five times in the head with a .22 caliber gun. He was repeatedly stabbed in the back, and possibly sodomized.

Karen Milat said that in the days before Letcher disappeared, Milat took her to Jenolan State Forest to see a pine plantation since he was working in the area. The murder of Peter Letcher took place right after Karen Milat left her husband.

On September 6, 1991 Dianne Pennacchio, 29, disappeared after leaving the Lake George Hotel. She told a friend she planned to hitchhike back to Queanbeyan. She was last seen walking toward the Kings Highway. Two months later a body wrapped in a triangular cover of pine branches, and covered with ferns was found lying face down next to a fallen tree in Tallaganda State Forest. She was only wearing underwear and trousers, and there were indications she was raped. Her seventh thoracic vertebra had been stabbed in the middle of her back. A beer bottle and can were left at the scene. Dianne's jewelry and car keys were missing.

Milat family c.1954

In 2005, Milat's older brother Boris said during an interview that "wherever Ivan has worked, people have disappeared." When asked what was the number he said about 20 or so.

In 2006, the Homicide Victim's Support Group found that Milat was allowed a television and a toaster in his prison cell. The privileges were quickly withdrawn after the media aired the story. He threatened suicide and was placed on a 24 hour watch.

Ivan's oldest sister Mary (b.1939) married Henry Shipsey and had three children with him. After his brick cleaning business went belly up he shot himself. One of her children, Alistair Shipsey released a book that included 94 love letters sent to his uncle in prison by different women. After Milat's trial his sister changed her name to Diane Shipsey.

Boris Milat was the only family member to denounce his brother Ivan. Like Olga, after Ivan's arrest in 1994 he changed his name to Steven Miller. He would not be the only sibling to change their surname, in order to avoid the notoriety caused by Ivan's crimes.

Adam Brook, was once considered a suspect in the Belanglo murders

The shadow of doubt as to more than one perpetrator has always hung over these murders.

Many believe Milat did not act alone in all the murders, one of his helpers being his sister Shirley Milat Soire (1946-2003). Milat's attorney pointed out that Ivan shared a home with a brother and sister (Shirley) during the time of the murders. Evidence that could have implicated Shirley were Longbeach cigarette butts found with Caroline Clarke's remains. Milat was not a smoker, but his sister was, and this was the brand she smoked.

In 1997, a group called The Firm (Friends of Ivan Robert Milat) were campaigning to reinvestigate the case. The effort was headed by Ian "Makka" MacDougall who shared a cell with Milat for 8 months. They made videotapes of interviews with the Milat family members and friends.

They also interviewed Debbie Francis who described how she was once engaged to Adam Brook, a police constable who was stationed at Corrimal on the south coast.

She said two members of Task Force Air who were investigating the backpack slayings, told her that Brook was a suspect in the killings.

The 24-year old man committed suicide by shooting himself with his service revolver in Corrimal police station on February 28, 1993.

Debbie Francis gave the Milat's fight force a black leather jacket and a woman's gold wristwatch, which she claimed were given to her as gifts by Brook.

The Firm obtained a search warrant listing a leather jacket owned by Gabor Neugebauer one of the victims, which had never been found.

Francis said that she called Crimestoppers twice, stating she had a jacket like the one they were looking for, but her calls were never returned.

In 1997, Brook's father, Chief Inspector Dick Brook, the patrol commander at the time of the Belanglo investigation, confirmed his son's death had been investigated, but only due to the timing and because he died by his own hand. His father claimed his son ended his life because he was heartbroken over the end of his relationship with Debbie.

He dismissed her claims that years before, he was a suspect in the search for a criminal known as the Bulli Rapist, and had been asked to submit DNA evidence. His father said he was only 17 years old, and he was tested along with all the young men in the area. The person arrested and convicted for the crime lived only 200m from their house.

The group said: "The Crown spent $20 million prosecuting this case, yet it has taken our small group of volunteers to come up with material, which suggests there may be more to it than has been made public. We are not saying Ivan Milat is innocent, but there is an obvious need for further investigation."

Nothing came of this group's effort to shed light on an accomplice that was outside of Milat's known ring of family and acquaintances.

In 2015, a juror who voted to convict Milat, came forward with claims that the killer could not have acted alone. The unidentified juror said he believed that Milat was guilty, however he was not strong enough to subdue two women, or carry the body of tall and muscular backpacker Gabor Neugebauer to where he was found, which was over 500 feet from where he was killed.

During sentencing, Judge Justice David Hunt said: "In my view it is inevitable the prisoner was not alone in that criminal enterprise".

Camping equipment belonging to the victims found at Ivan Milat's and his brother's homes. c.1994-95 (Source-Crime NSW)

In 2012, Matthew Milat, Ivan's great-nephew and his friend Cohen Klein were sentenced to 43 years and 32 years respectively for murdering David Auchterlonie on his 17th birthday. The perpetrators were both 19 years old in 2010, when Matthew Milat killed Auchterlonie with a double-edged ax, while Klein filmed it with his cellular phone. The site was the Belanglo Forest where Ivan Milat had disposed of his victims.

Riding on the coattails of the infamy of the case, in 2015 guided ghost tours were offered in the area where Milat buried his victims at the cost of $150 per person. It was a short-lived idea since it was canceled after public backlash. Advertising for the event read: "come with us to Belanglo where Ivan Milat buried the bodies of his victims! Once you enter Belanglo state forest you may never come out … ”

The film "Wolf Creek" c.2005 was based in part on the case of Ivan Milat

WHO WAS IVAN ROBERT MARKO MILAT

Milat was the son of Croat immigrants. He was the fifth of fourteen children, born to a family who lived in a rural area and kept to themselves. Reliable information about his upbringing has been difficult to verify. After his trial, his brother Boris said Ivan displayed psychopathic tendencies from an early age. Other family members dispute this.

He had run-ins with the law since he was 17, including charges of housebreaking, car thefts and armed robberies. As an adult he didn't smoke or drink, and worked construction taking overtime jobs, which allowed him to buy a motorcycle, off-road vehicles and a property. He was also fascinated with firearms and hunting.

Ivan Milat died in 2019, having outlived his parents and five of his siblings. He suffered from terminal esophagus and stomach cancer, which had spread to his bones, liver and lymph glands. He never admitted to any of the murders, and denied wanting to receive last rites from a priest when he lay dying. He was cremated, and his brother Bill Milat scattered the ashes at the Illawarra region south of Sydney.

In 2022, Lynise his daughter died suddenly after developing a blood clot. She was 57 year old, and her mother described where she was haunted her entire life by being Ivan Milat's daughter.

The events depicted in the 2005 Australian horror film Wolf Creek were loosely based upon his crimes.